According to this guy, Mathematics is not a science because you don't conduct experiments. The key error is this:
Science creates knowledge via controlled experiments
Which is false. Science checks hypotheses and tries to prove them, or makes repeated experiments that show the failure to disprove them.
It's not just in mathematics that this is false. Controlled experiments are one of doing science. By the definition of the author of the original article, combing through existing genomic data to identify SNPs possibly associated with disease isn't science. By his definition, identifying comets or asteroids or planetoids by examining collections of astronomical images taken by others isn't science. By his definition, the work of theoretical physicists who do not perform experiments isn't science. By his definition, identification of new anatomical structures by anatomists performing dissections isn't science. When the author gets it so wrong in his opening sentence, I am reluctant to take the remainder of what he says very seriously.
I would suggest checking out the blog of Ezra Levant, mentioned in the National Post story. Levant was brought up before the Alberta Human Rights Commission for publishing the Danish cartoons and follows the "human rights" commissions closely.
Here is a short video from his interrogation and a quote from his blog: "And after I made [my point], [Human Rights] Officer [Shirlene] McGovern said 'you're entitled to your opinions, that's for sure.' Well, actually, I'm not, am I? That's the reason I was sitting there. I don't have the right to my opinions, unless she says I do."
And here is another video from the interrogation in which Levant expresses his disgust at being directed to answer to the government and characterizes the human rights officer as a thug.
In the end, it is always supposed to be the people that have the final say.
Hmmmm... So why does the U.S. Constitution provide lifetime tenure for Supreme Court and other federal judges? You can't vote them out of office and I can't think of case of a judge being impeached because of an unpopular opinion.
Guess what? The supreme court was wrong! And they are wrong quite a bit too.
Do I think the Supreme Court is always right? No.
But, guess what? The Supreme Court is the controlling legal authority. Your opinion (and mine) on the constitutionality of pen traps doesn't matter before the law.
Rights enshrined in the Constitution do not include the privacy of your phone records. (I'm talking about records of the numbers to/from which calls were made, not the content of the calls.) If you don't believe me, see what the U.S. Supreme Court had to say in Smith v. Maryland.
[What] has impressed on you the importance of revision, or at least of reviewing your writing at intervals?
The failure of others to understand the intent of my writing.
Perhaps you could divide the students into small groups. Within each group, each student would critique the other students' drafts. That might identity areas in the drafts that are in need of revision. (This is not unlike the code reviews that are sometimes used in software development.)
BTW, a minor note on grammar:
[N]ative English speakers aren't rule-based parsers, so teaching grammatical rules (like when to use the subjunctive or where to put commas) doesn't improve compliance.
Shouldn't that be "such as when" instead of "like when?"
If this book is correct, and the benefits of educational computing are overrated, perhaps it's time to consider repealing some of the universal service fee (a.k.a. the Gore tax) tacked onto phone bills to wire the schools?
(We're not talking pennies here; the FCC collects $2+ billion each year.)
That people anthropomorphize computers isn't really a new finding. In a 1998 talk at the national conference of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, Clifford Nass described experiments that show social roles are applied to computers. In other words, people treat the computers that they use in much the same way that they treat other people.
To see the implications of this, consider that people on a team--no matter how assembled--tend to regard their teammates as smarter than those not on the team. In light of the social roles of computers, a reasonable question might then be: Would individuals "teamed" with a computer think that the computer is smarter than would computer users not on a team?
In an experiment, individuals were told that they were being teamed with a computer to solve a task. (How do you foster team identity when the team consists of a human and a computer? You declare the pair "The Blue Team," give the human a blue wristband, decorate the computer with a blue border, and place a "Blue Team" label on top. I'm not making this up.) The human member of each team then worked with the computer to solve the problem. Other individuals received the same responses from the computer in solving the task, but were not told they were on a team. Those teamed with the computer rated the computer as more helpful and insightful than those who were not.
Through numerous other experiments, Nass and his colleagues have shown that computer "personality" and other factors can be manipulated to elicit positive responses to computers by their users. (One experiment demonstrated that humans seem to be suckers for computer-generated flattery.) For AI researchers, Nass made the point that users can be encouraged to perceive computers as intelligent through social strategies that have little to do with intelligence.
>And the Taliban... They instituted the death penalty for Opium cultivation , or don't you remember that either.
According to a recent article: "When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, according to Pakistani intelligence officials, it actively engaged in opium and heroin production, and allowed al Qaeda to raise funds through taxing the cultivation of poppy, the raw material for heroin."
>how come the pentagon (y'know, the *other* 9/11 target) has not been so much as mentioned in any mainstream news media since, oh, about a year ago?
Gee, I don't share your perception at all. For example, there was a piece on Reuters this morning about fears at the Pentagon that it will be struck again. There was a piece in today's Washington Post about one of the Pentagon victims who's still in the hospital. There was a piece this morning on NPR about how the Pentagon was rebuilt in a year. And that's just today (and I only checked three sources).
>"Actually the BBC license fee was created as a crony-capitalist protection measure, so that TV did not take advertising revenue from the newspapers."
Actually, this statement is incorrect. The BBC sold more than one million licenses before its first radio broadcast on 14 November 1922. Its first television broadcast wasn't until 2 November 1936, when there were only a few thousand television receivers. Obviously, the BBC license fee was not created to protect newspaper advertising revenues from TV.
In fact, I would be very interested in seeing any credible evidence that the BBC license fee was instituted as a "crony capitalism protection measure" to shield newspapers from radio.
>maybe you actually missed it, but in that first link, it states that the court was upset with how the FBI acted in about 75 cases occuring in 2000 and 2001, not before 2000
If you actually read the opinion (page 16), you'll find: "In September 2000, the government came forward to confess error in some 75 FISA applications." So, presumably, those 75 errors occurred in 2000 or before.
>I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss that "1 million homeless" statistic. I doubt that there's much more than an estimate behind it
Actually, why not use Census Bureau numbers? According to an article last year, the Census Bureau counted 228,621 homeless in 1990 and 280,527 in 2000. These numbers aren't without controversy; homeless advocates don't like them. Nonetheless, I think it can be reasonably argued that the number of homeless is probably under half a million. Still a lot of people, but not the three million that some have asserted.
According to this article,
in 2000 Microsoft adopted a policy that "hardware manufacturers who license
Windows directly from Microsoft [may] no longer ship a full backup CD of the OS."
Unless Microsoft has changed its policy, HP may be contractually prohibited
from shipping actual XP backup media with its systems.
"Adult stem cells already have the type of cell it is. One purpose."
Not quite. Some adult stem cells become just one kind of cell--these are unipotent stem cells. Other adult stem cells can become one of several types of cells--these are multipotent. For example, adult bone marrow stem cells can become kidney, liver, nerve and muscle cells. (BTW, embryonic stem cells, which can become any type of cell, are pluripotent.)
For those interested in both sides of the global warming debate, the review
"Environmental Effects of
Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide" may be of interest. From the
abstract, "Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases
in minor greenhouse gases like CO2 are in error and do not conform to current
experimental knowledge."
"In order to maintain an open and free government, the people must be able to understand all governmental processes" Like the way the people of the US understand the 2,000 pages of the IRS code plus the 12,000 pages of regulations? Or, like the way the people of the US understand the 110,000+ pages of Medicare regulations? Just wondering...
Slashdot Mirror
According to this guy, Mathematics is not a science because you don't conduct experiments. The key error is this:
Science creates knowledge via controlled experiments
Which is false. Science checks hypotheses and tries to prove them, or makes repeated experiments that show the failure to disprove them.
It's not just in mathematics that this is false. Controlled experiments are one of doing science. By the definition of the author of the original article, combing through existing genomic data to identify SNPs possibly associated with disease isn't science. By his definition, identifying comets or asteroids or planetoids by examining collections of astronomical images taken by others isn't science. By his definition, the work of theoretical physicists who do not perform experiments isn't science. By his definition, identification of new anatomical structures by anatomists performing dissections isn't science. When the author gets it so wrong in his opening sentence, I am reluctant to take the remainder of what he says very seriously.
I would suggest checking out the blog of Ezra Levant, mentioned in the National Post story. Levant was brought up before the Alberta Human Rights Commission for publishing the Danish cartoons and follows the "human rights" commissions closely.
Here is a short video from his interrogation and a quote from his blog: "And after I made [my point], [Human Rights] Officer [Shirlene] McGovern said 'you're entitled to your opinions, that's for sure.' Well, actually, I'm not, am I? That's the reason I was sitting there. I don't have the right to my opinions, unless she says I do."
And here is another video from the interrogation in which Levant expresses his disgust at being directed to answer to the government and characterizes the human rights officer as a thug.
Hmmmm ... So why does the U.S. Constitution provide lifetime tenure for Supreme Court and other federal judges? You can't vote them out of office and I can't think of case of a judge being impeached because of an unpopular opinion.
Do I think the Supreme Court is always right? No.
But, guess what? The Supreme Court is the controlling legal authority. Your opinion (and mine) on the constitutionality of pen traps doesn't matter before the law.
Rights enshrined in the Constitution do not include the privacy of your phone records. (I'm talking about records of the numbers to/from which calls were made, not the content of the calls.) If you don't believe me, see what the U.S. Supreme Court had to say in Smith v. Maryland.
The failure of others to understand the intent of my writing.
Perhaps you could divide the students into small groups. Within each group, each student would critique the other students' drafts. That might identity areas in the drafts that are in need of revision. (This is not unlike the code reviews that are sometimes used in software development.)
BTW, a minor note on grammar:
[N]ative English speakers aren't rule-based parsers, so teaching grammatical rules (like when to use the subjunctive or where to put commas) doesn't improve compliance.
Shouldn't that be "such as when" instead of "like when?"
If this book is correct, and the benefits of educational computing are overrated, perhaps it's time to consider repealing some of the universal service fee (a.k.a. the Gore tax) tacked onto phone bills to wire the schools? (We're not talking pennies here; the FCC collects $2+ billion each year.)
To see the implications of this, consider that people on a team--no matter how assembled--tend to regard their teammates as smarter than those not on the team. In light of the social roles of computers, a reasonable question might then be: Would individuals "teamed" with a computer think that the computer is smarter than would computer users not on a team?
In an experiment, individuals were told that they were being teamed with a computer to solve a task. (How do you foster team identity when the team consists of a human and a computer? You declare the pair "The Blue Team," give the human a blue wristband, decorate the computer with a blue border, and place a "Blue Team" label on top. I'm not making this up.) The human member of each team then worked with the computer to solve the problem. Other individuals received the same responses from the computer in solving the task, but were not told they were on a team. Those teamed with the computer rated the computer as more helpful and insightful than those who were not.
Through numerous other experiments, Nass and his colleagues have shown that computer "personality" and other factors can be manipulated to elicit positive responses to computers by their users. (One experiment demonstrated that humans seem to be suckers for computer-generated flattery.) For AI researchers, Nass made the point that users can be encouraged to perceive computers as intelligent through social strategies that have little to do with intelligence.
Those interested in learning more might read The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places in which Nass and Byron Reeves describe 35 experiments.
>And the Taliban ... They instituted the death penalty for Opium cultivation , or don't you remember that either.
According to a recent article: "When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, according to Pakistani intelligence officials, it actively engaged in opium and heroin production, and allowed al Qaeda to raise funds through taxing the cultivation of poppy, the raw material for heroin."
>how come the pentagon (y'know, the *other* 9/11 target) has not been so much as mentioned in any mainstream news media since, oh, about a year ago?
Gee, I don't share your perception at all. For example, there was a piece on Reuters this morning about fears at the Pentagon that it will be struck again. There was a piece in today's Washington Post about one of the Pentagon victims who's still in the hospital. There was a piece this morning on NPR about how the Pentagon was rebuilt in a year. And that's just today (and I only checked three sources).
Actually, this statement is incorrect. The BBC sold more than one million licenses before its first radio broadcast on 14 November 1922. Its first television broadcast wasn't until 2 November 1936, when there were only a few thousand television receivers. Obviously, the BBC license fee was not created to protect newspaper advertising revenues from TV.
In fact, I would be very interested in seeing any credible evidence that the BBC license fee was instituted as a "crony capitalism protection measure" to shield newspapers from radio.
If you actually read the opinion (page 16), you'll find: "In September 2000, the government came forward to confess error in some 75 FISA applications." So, presumably, those 75 errors occurred in 2000 or before.
Judge Kotar-Kotelly may have released the opinion, but it was actually written by Judge Royce Lamberth, with six concurring justices.
>I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss that "1 million homeless" statistic. I doubt that there's much more than an estimate behind it
Actually, why not use Census Bureau numbers? According to an article last year, the Census Bureau counted 228,621 homeless in 1990 and 280,527 in 2000. These numbers aren't without controversy; homeless advocates don't like them. Nonetheless, I think it can be reasonably argued that the number of homeless is probably under half a million. Still a lot of people, but not the three million that some have asserted.
According to this article, in 2000 Microsoft adopted a policy that "hardware manufacturers who license Windows directly from Microsoft [may] no longer ship a full backup CD of the OS." Unless Microsoft has changed its policy, HP may be contractually prohibited from shipping actual XP backup media with its systems.
Not quite. Some adult stem cells become just one kind of cell--these are unipotent stem cells. Other adult stem cells can become one of several types of cells--these are multipotent. For example, adult bone marrow stem cells can become kidney, liver, nerve and muscle cells. (BTW, embryonic stem cells, which can become any type of cell, are pluripotent.)
"Robo-cup" (audio, requires player) by Lee Gutkind, National Public Radio, Weekend All Things Considered, 28 July 2001
"RoboCup 2001 Marks SGI's Second Year of RoboCup Federation Sponsorship" (press release), PR Newswire, 1 August 2001
"Robot Competitors Meet on a Soccer Field of Dreams" (free registration required) by Jeffrey Selingo, New York Times, 2 August 2001
"RoboCup: Where Bots Kick Butt" by Jason Spingarn-Koff, Lycos News, 2 August 2001
"Rush is on for 'HAL'-like computer to perfect A.I." by Winda Benedetti, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 3 August 2001
"Robot world cup kicks off", BBC, 3 August 2001
"RoboCup 2001 boots up" by Helen Pearson, Nature Science Update, 3 August 2001
"Blutgrätschen ohne Blut und Beine", stern.de, 3 August 2001
"Roboter aus 23 Ländern tragen Fußballweltmeisterschaft aus", Net-Business Online, 3 August 2001
"RoboCup 2001, il calcio visto dai robot", Punto Informatico, 3 August 2001
"Building a better goalie (buzz, whir)" by Gregory Roberts, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 4 August 2001
"Man and machine take the field" by David Olsen, Seattle Times, 4 August 2001
"Robots Storm the Soccer Field" by Maria Godoy, TechTV/Tech Live, 6 August 2001
Information about live Webcast of Botball finals (an event distinct from Robocup) on 7-8 August
For those interested in both sides of the global warming debate, the review "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide" may be of interest. From the abstract, "Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in minor greenhouse gases like CO2 are in error and do not conform to current experimental knowledge."
Question: Who's the world's largest solar electric company?
Answer: BP Solar (BTW, BP="British Petroleum").
"In order to maintain an open and free government, the people must be able to understand all governmental processes" Like the way the people of the US understand the 2,000 pages of the IRS code plus the 12,000 pages of regulations? Or, like the way the people of the US understand the 110,000+ pages of Medicare regulations? Just wondering ...